Jay Bolter. Writing Space: Computer Hypertext and the Remediation of Print
(2001)
History of writing from cuneiform and hieroglyphics to the computer. Historical perspective. A continuum of change in space.
Ch 1. All forms of writing are spatial, each technology gives a different space.
Ch 2. What the reader and writer understand is conditioned by the physical character for the books they use. Novel qualities or computers as a writing medium.
Chs. 3-5. Contemporary critical Theory—Derrida in particular emphasis on underlying cultural assumptions—sophist?
Ch 6 moves from writing as act to books and other text units. Idea of the book—electronic encyclopedias etc.
Chs. 7&8 examination of the electronic book
Ch 9 Argues that electronic media” in a curious way seems likely to end the recent and sometimes bitter debate between traditionalists and contemporary theorists. For the traditional reader electronic wirting offers little comfort; it will infact confirm much of what deconstructionists and others have been saying about the instability of ? and decreasing authority of the author”
Closing—mind as writing space. Artificial intelligence, electronic signs, conceptions of mind and culture. Foucault might say hypertextual episteme. Writing cultures sense of self and mind implications of new info text.
Prophecy and warning for humanists and a historical era for techies.
We are in the late age of print.
The web is hypertext for us today; importance of graphics, animation, video and audio
In past they were afraid of the printed book: Victor Hugo’s Notre Dame de Paris 1484, the priest sees printed books as an end rather than a beginning. Thought human thought would change its mode of expression (ie Ong) so fear and excitement. Tension between print and digital continuum
Future—electronic books, many advantages, but print still viable, will remain so for certain uses—for new critics as Luddites. Fear of movement from printed word. Boulter ties to Gutenberg
“Critics accuse computer of promoting homogeneity in our society of producing uniformity through automation but electronic reading and writing seem to have just the opposite effect” same was said of press at first.
Move over analytic argument
“If the printing press was the classic writing machine, the computer constitutes a technology of writing beyond mechanization, a post industrial form of writing”
Ch 3. Hypertext and the Remediation of print; hypertext links are more efficient—pinpoint information, ease of revision, spatial—topoi, topics. Gives a physical connection to previously berbally connected ideas (hypertext links) non linear for organization—outlining 3 dimensional.
Nelson felt literature was a system of interconnected writings—intertextuality—a fact. We enhances the global reach.
Each medium: handwriting, print, hypertext, has own set of genres.
Genre or genre set for digital medium is interactive fiction, applications for education and entertainment. Hypertext heads the underlying technology.
Ch 4. The breakout of the visual. Images dominate. Thereis image in printed page—less in traditional nonfiction, more in art books.
We are post literate, so image a secondary
“The death of prose will never be complete because our culture will want to keep the patient alive so that the mutual remediation with digital media can continue” Remediation: to remedy or overcome. Reciprocal remediation between graphics and verbal texts
Reader to viewer: like Rebus poetry. Viewer to reader: Ekphrastic. Novels to films. Films to novels (new phenomenon) sea change: visual now on top.
“we have been turning in this visual/prose death roll: pictographs to hieroglyphs to alphabet—nothing new.
This book is 2001—pre facebook.
Part II many characters “The electronic book”
Refashioned dialogues: medieval codex patterned by rubrication and various sizes of letters, modern book with paragraphed pages, computers with text windows and screen images.
Plato feared writing and its control of new space. Is Plato’s fear feigned as he draws readers to written word? Boulter says yes.
From dialogue to essay to web page. Platonic dialogue is hybrid—dialogue on paper.
Move from linear—Derrida, Glas—two books side by side.
Discussion boards: dialogues, multiple dialogues.
Interactive fiction: Joyce Aferborn; reader makes choices—like a treasure hunt—many paths.
James joyce as hypertext—Ullyses, Finnegan’s Wake, encyclopedic
Ch 8 Critical theory in a new writing space 60s 70s debate over academic uses of literature. End of authority—reader guided.
Ch 9. Writing the Self. Cartesian self influence as analytic tool—like Ong. Postmodern self. Electronic self
Jay Bolter. Writing Space: Computer Hypertext and the Remediation of Print
(2001)